


Magic Signs Scratched inside a Heart

by langsdelijn



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, winterbreakprompts valentine's exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 19:47:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3353147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/langsdelijn/pseuds/langsdelijn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>About one in a thousand people have a bond mark. Seb has one. Kimi does, too. It still takes a long time for anything to come of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Magic Signs Scratched inside a Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Of_Electric_Sheep](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Of_Electric_Sheep/gifts).



> Written for the Valentine's Day gift exchanged organized by [winterbreakprompts](http://winterbreakprompts.tumblr.com/) on tumblr for the prompt "Soulmates first words on arm AU". Special thanks to [trtina](http://archiveofourown.org/users/trtina) for the beta, especially the help with the final scene, and reassurance this was not just a loosely-held together bunch of snippets. Any remaining mistakes were reintroduced by me.
> 
> Title taken from _Pictures on Your Skin_ by Anouk.

_A **bond mark** is a tattoo-like pigmentation of the skin of the forearm/wrist area present in an estimated one per mille of the population. Individuals who carry such a mark are known as bond candidates. The bond mark serves to identify so-called “soulmates” (in official parlance an optimal bond pair or bond mates): it commonly appears as writing and regardless of form represents an important interaction between the bond mates, i.e. the moment the soul bond is initiated. It is uncommon for both partners to initiate the bonding process simultaneously._

*

‘It’s Finnish,’ he commented, when he caught Dan staring. Seb was one of the lucky—slash unlucky, slash earmarked for research by aliens, slash chosen by one or more gods; since the origin of the marks was still completely unknown, the wildest theories abounded—few with a bond mark.

‘Oh,’ Dan said. ‘I thought maybe it was y’know… _sexy noises_ , all those vowels and all….’ 

‘Finnish,’ Seb confirmed. He tried to nonchalantly and stealthily kick Dan in the shins in an admittedly probably misplaced defence of the Finnish language. It could probably take care of itself, insofar as a concept like that could apply to a language. Just as well, too, since he failed miserably.

‘So what’s it say?’ Dan probed, curiously poking at the mark.

‘That’s private,’ Seb said hurriedly, in as flat a tone as he could manage. ‘Obviously,’ he added, just in case Dan saw through his previous attempt at nonchalance.

Dan gasped. His grin became conspiratorial. Seb sighed, knowing he was busted. ‘It _is_ sexy noises! _Finnish ones!_ ’ Dan stage-whispered excitedly.

*

As a child, Seb had been fascinated by the unfamiliarity of the words on his arm: none of the words looked like those he was learning to read, with their odd combinations of vowels and consonants. He wanted to know what language it was, how it worked, and what those words _meant_. And so he made sure to find out.

Seb discovered it was a risqué statement that probably belonged in the bedroom. At the time, as a teenager, he had secretly been delighted.

But he usually made sure to keep his mark covered up from then on. 

*

A flash of blond appeared in Seb’s peripheral vision. It coalesced into Kimi when it entered more fully into his field of vision. Seb, who had just wanted to give both his arms equal time in the sun and therefore had his mark out in the open, quickly tried to twist his wrist down to keep Kimi from reading it. 

Kimi leaned closer, all the way into his personal space so their bodies were in contact from their shoulders to their knees, and repeated the words to him, his voice low and strong and steady; word for word correct. Apparently Kimi was a fast reader. And had excellent verbal recollection skills. Of course, Seb thought. Just his luck. ‘Do you know what that means, Sebastian?’ Kimi whispered, and nothing in his intonation gave away that he had anything but helpful intentions, only the way his mouth almost brushed against the shell of Seb’s ear and the way Kimi pressed against him. 

‘Yes,’ Seb said, and took pride in the fact that his voice didn’t waver even though he felt a little unsteady on his feet. It was the first time he’d heard these words he’d known all his life spoken out loud. All of the other concerned Finns who’d seen his mark and talked to him about it had found a less verbal way to communicate their advice, for propriety’s sake.

*

Kimi’s bond mark was covered by his tattoo. Seb considered this to be unacceptable, because if Kimi got to make him weak in the knees on the drivers’ parade Seb should at least get to embarrass him during a game of badminton. 

It didn’t have to be badminton, obviously. As long as Seb got the opportunity for retaliation. 

It could be cards.

*

Seb spent an inordinate amount of time studying Kimi’s wrist in his attempt to discern a trace of the mark under the tattoo. After that proved unsuccessful, he took to the internet in pursuit of pictures of Kimi from before he had the tattoo, convinced this would be solved in a matter of seconds and cursing himself for going with staring himself blind on the stupid thing initially. He didn’t have much luck, though. Apparently no one had especially cared back then or, perhaps and more likely, Seb just really sucked at searching.

Asking had been a dead end straight away. Kimi had laughed and said that it was a promise, not an advertisement. And that had been the overly cryptic end of that.

*

It was a popular belief that bond mates could identify one another even before the initiation of the bond, or at least that they tended to seek each other out subconsciously. It went unproven, of course, but Seb thought there might be something to it. He’d worked out that Kimi probably was his soulmate not long after the incident at the drivers’ parade all those years ago.

*

Bond candidates were statistically vastly overrepresented in all branches of sport—the correlation between bond candidacy and athletic ability was well-supported but as ill-explained as all things bond-related were—but the situation in Formula 1 was in all likelihood the most disproportionate. 

In the general population, one in every thousand people was a bond candidate. For Formula 1 to have three of them in a field of twenty-two was already wildly uncommon, and with two of those three of those coming from one team… 

‘Sebastian,’ asked every reporter, ‘with the arrival of Max Verstappen next year, the Red Bull young drivers programme will have produced a record _three_ bond candidates…’

‘I don’t know,’ he told all of them. ‘I don’t know,’ he replied to their inevitable follow-up question that the drivers who were let go were never bond candidates. ‘I don’t know,’ he said about Dan, who was the exception to the accusation barely left implicit in their words.

*

If Kimi would have gone for it then, back when Seb was still young and awkward and nobody, he’d have let Kimi do anything he wanted to him. Maybe even right there on the track.

*

‘Red Bull _gives_ you bond marks?’

‘Apparently,’ he agreed, with a shrug and a grin, and walked on.

*

‘I’m coming to Ferrari,’ Seb announced. Kimi blinked. He turned his head. He looked at Seb quizzically. ‘I’m coming to Ferrari,’ he repeated. Kimi, evidently, was not listening. Seb had been holding forth on the subject of bond marks and conspiracy theories, but he’d got bored and decided to break the news to Kimi early instead. 

Seb decided to forgive Kimi for not paying attention. His look of confusion had been very amusing.

‘Is—is that the conclusion to the story?’

‘Uh,’ Seb said, momentarily puzzled as to why he’d even think that. ‘No.’

‘Okay,’ Kimi said.

Seb waited for a reaction. One did not appear to be forthcoming. ‘I’m coming to Ferrari,’ he said a third time.

‘Yes,’ said Kimi calmly. ‘As I said, it is a promise.’

‘It’s an announcement,’ Seb corrected. And then his brain caught up. Oh. A promise, not an advertisement. At least he knew what that meant, then.

‘Um,’ he tried, nervously playing with his sleeves. ‘Oh. Uh…’ Seb, having come to the realisation he had nothing to say, decided he’d waited long enough already.

He kissed Kimi.

*

‘How will you handle a soul bond in a professional environment?’ everyone wanted to know.

‘I imagine your bond will be very useful in terms of identifying and handling issues with the car, setups, and the like?’ they asked.

‘Is it fair that Ferrari has access to a bond pair of drivers?’ the more direct questioned.

‘Do you as individual drivers gain an advantage through your bond?’ 

Seb sighed. ‘I don’t know. I guess we’ll see. I’m looking forward to it.’ He smiled.

*

Seb was pressed against the wall. Kimi’s body held him there, one hand buried in his hair pulling his head back enough to arch his back, the other holding his arm up so he was forced to look at his own mark, one of Kimi’s legs firmly planted between his legs. ‘Do you still remember what it means, Sebastian?’ Kimi murmured into the crook of his neck in Finnish.

Seb forced down a moan. ‘Yes.’

‘Say it,’ Kimi demanded.

Seb considered his options. ‘Make me,’ he grinned, defiantly switching to English.

Kimi set his teeth on the skin of Seb’s neck and nipped in warning. He tightened his grip on Seb’s hair and pulled harder. Seb obediently followed the motion, stretched back so far the line of his throat was entirely exposed, finding it hard to focus his vision.

‘Say it,’ Kimi repeated.

Seb did as he was told this time, enunciating carefully, trying to match Kimi’s original recitation as best he could. It had become the definitive one in his mind.

Kimi let go of his arm. Seb kept it where it was. Kimi removed his hand from Seb’s hair. Seb didn’t move. ‘Good,’ Kimi judged. His hands trailed down Seb’s body and started to work on his trousers.

‘Tell me what it means,’ Kimi ordered, effortlessly combining language lessons and his work to free Seb’s cock from the layers of fabric keeping it confined.

‘It means—’

‘In German,’ Kimi interrupted, unconcerned, lazily continuing to stroke him. 

‘Uh—’ Seb managed, and then his power of speech gave out, as Kimi produced a particular flourish of—whatever, who cared. All manner of needy little sounds were already threatening to spill from Seb’s lips; this was not a time for thinking, or translation, or producing complex sentences. 

‘Sebastian…,’ Kimi warned.

‘It—it means—’ Seb cut himself off with another moan, and abandoned his attempt. He willed Kimi to get to the point. He tried to decide in which language the sentiment of “shut up and fuck me” was most likely to lead to the desired result.

‘Not so good,’ Kimi whispered darkly. Seb let out an impatient groan and tried to make Kimi at least hurry the hell up in jerking him off, hips stuttering forward. But Kimi just stopped moving altogether, dispassionately holding Seb’s dick in his hand and waiting. Seb whined pitifully and looked down in a bid to appear contrite.

‘On the bed,’ Kimi ordered, _finally_ , after far too long.

Seb wasted no time. Kimi took plenty. He finally crawled up on the mattress behind Seb, still fully clothed against his bare skin, since Seb had made sure to get his clothes out of the way immediately. He was fully exposed, the entirety of his body on offer to Kimi, to study, to touch, to use. It made Kimi seem immensely powerful to him. 

Kimi carefully directed Seb to shift his weight, one arm steady on his waist, the other loosely touching Seb’s right arm. Kimi gently lifted it off the mattress, cradled in his hand, his fingers resting around the mark on Seb’s wrist. His skin felt white-hot wherever it was in contact with Kimi’s.

Seb felt Kimi’s lips brush against the shell of his ear as he whispered the words imprinted on his wrist, felt Kimi’s thumb brush over his mark, his touch leaving wakes of desire on Seb’s skin. It dawned on him that this was their bonding, that they would be connected forever from now on.

Seb thought this was all well and good, but he had other priorities at the moment. All of them were centred on Kimi making good on his intentions as written on Seb’s skin.

At the back of his own mind, Seb felt Kimi’s response to that thought and knew he was finally getting somewhere. Kimi still wanted to draw this out and make him wait—Seb licked his lips at the echo of the thrill Kimi derived from him giving in and moving at a rate Kimi decided—but Seb could feel that the feedback of his own impatience was fraying at Kimi’s resistance.

Seb keened at the loss of his touch, the air too cool against his heated skin, and waited a small eternity for Kimi to press back up against him, the dull coarse fabric replaced by hot skin.


End file.
